


Kill The Thing You Love

by Fishyz9



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishyz9/pseuds/Fishyz9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic Prompt: "The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde (1896)" By Travellingtrollop.<br/>Summary: This was supposed to be maybe 500 words and turned into 2500 nearly. Blame my frustration on the DAYS characters who enable a psychopath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill The Thing You Love

Kill The Thing You Love.

This is the part where I’m supposed to rage. I’m sure I should be lunging for him right now, but he’s in cuffs and the room is so quiet. We’re all in shock. No, _they’re_ all in shock. I’m indescribable, to be quite honest. And I think…I think that for right now, I may hate everyone else in this room more than the man who just killed the mother of my child.

Abi. Julie. Even Rafe and Hope are looking at Nick as if he’s a stranger.

“He…he couldn’t have.” Julie mutters in shock, her eyes horrified and glassy with tears as she stares at Nick.

But Nick’s not there anymore. His eyes are wide and vacant and anything that once existed, any glimmer of light that was enough when it shouldn’t have been for these lazy, apathetic people around me is now extinguished. He has drained himself of everything so as to feel nothing at all. He is an empty room with no air, no light, and he is left with just the echoes of the person he used to be.

“He didn’t, he…” Julie says louder, and I swear the volume hurts everyone close because we’re not ready for noise yet. “He didn’t! Hope, you have to find the person who―”

Hope grips her arm; unable to look at anyone or anything but the door to the hospital room where Daniel only moments ago pulled a white sheet dabbed with red over Gabi’s still form. “Don’t.”

“But, Hope…”

“Just don’t!”

Julie tugs her arm away. “I can’t believe you. Look at him! Look at our Nick!”

She tries to turn Hope towards Nick who stands with his arms held behind his back by two officers who wait for her instructions, but Hope pulls free and takes a single step away, towards Rafe. However, she has the grace to go no closer, clearly ashamed.

Rafe sits doubled over, his head in his hands. Daniel and Jordan are beside him, holding him up. He does nothing but shake his head.

“Rafe,” Hope whispers. “I’m so ―”

Rafe sways in his seat and then lets out a noise like a broken thing. A wounded animal in need of shooting. Hope recoils, her hand flying to cover her mouth. His grief is an earthquake that shakes us all and not one of us can bear it.

“I can’t believe this.” Abi whispers, and right there, at that very moment, I crack.

“You can’t?” I ask.

Everyone but Rafe looks at me, the ice in my voice no doubt earning their attention.

“You’re to blame, so what’s not to believe?”

“Will. Don’t. Not now.”  That’s Sonny. I feel his hand on my shoulder and I know that if it weren’t for the fact that he’s cradling our sleeping daughter to his shoulder that he would probably be dragging me away right now.

“No.” I gently brush his hand away, squeezing it before approaching Abi who stares at me with wide eyes. “They need to hear this.”

Abi’s shaking her head, shrinking away from me. “I don’t know what…I can’t believe you just said that to me…”

“You.” I say, pushing the words out of my mouth that is set in a grim shape. “And you.” I look at Julie. “And you.” I say again, looking at Hope. Hope is the only one who doesn’t seem appalled. In fact I dare say she knows what it is I’m about to say. “All of you made this possible.”

Julie sputters. “How _dare_ you!”

“You were closest to him. You saw his sickness. I tried to tell you again and again, but you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t see it.”

“He didn’t ―!”

“ _My sister is dead!_ ” Rafe bellows at her, and Julie freezes like a dear caught in the headlights.

I’ve never felt so miserable in all my life. There is zero satisfaction in my words but I’m not willing to let these three grieve with the rest of us as if their pain measures up. “What was it you were waiting for?” I shrug. “What did you need? What would have been too much?”

“Will, take a breath.” Sonny says, his hand sliding down the length of my back.

“Murdering your friend’s father?” I ask Abi, and then draw a tick in the air. “Check.”  I look at Julie. “Attempted rape?”

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, shaking her head again. “Gabi said they’d worked that out ―”

“Check.” I speak over her, and then I turn to Hope. “Blackmail? An unstable personality? An obsession over single, vulnerable women?” 

I feel something splinter in me. My friend is dead. Ari has no mother…I lunge at the nurses desk and with both arms swipe everything away so that charts and phones clatter to the ground in a heap. “ _Check_!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

Suddenly there are arms locked around me, dragging me backwards. I don’t know who has Ari because those are Sonny’s arms holding me tight as I finally dissolve into heaving sobs. “She was my friend!” I cry, and my sobs are rivalled only by Rafe’s.

Hope is suddenly in front of me, blocking one of the officers from approaching me. “Leave him!” She yells. “Just... stand down.”

“Will, it’s okay. Just listen to my voice, you’re alright…” Sonny murmurs into my ear. “I’ve got you.”

“He listened to you.” I choke, barely able to see the horrified expressions on their faces through my own tears. “And what did you do? What did you careless _bitches_ do?”

“Will, sweetheart, just breathe.” That’s my grandmother Marlena; I didn’t even know she was here. At least now I know who’s holding my baby. My baby who is hiccupping unhappily. “Listen to Sonny.”

“He just kept doing these horrible, terrible things to everyone, to _me_!” I sob. “And all you did was tell him how much you _loved_ him!”

“What were we supposed to do?!” Julie cries.

“You scream at him! You tell him what a monster he is! You call him on every side long glance he gave my daughter! You keep him under glass! You don’t ignore the uneasy feeling he gives you! You hold his goddamn feet to the fire and you hold him accountable!”

Abi presses her hand to her chest, tears running down her cheeks. “That isn’t fair…” she says, her voice shaking.

“You know what isn’t _fair_?” I spit out at her. “That bastard trying to steal my daughter, me getting _shot_ because of him, and then having my own family look at me like _I’m_ the heartless one when I demand he stay away from my family!”

“It wasn’t for you to come between him and Gabi, Will. They’re adults ―” Julie says defiantly, but she’s crying, too.

“ _Were_. They _were_ adults.” I say through gritted teeth, ignoring Sonny’s hand that rubs my chest soothingly. I point at Nick. “He’s not even human anymore and Gabi’s dead.” I try to step towards her, but Sonny’s not having it and pulls me firmly back against his chest. “And when are you going to grasp that it wasn’t about _them_?!”

Julie glances at Hope, but Hope ignores her.

“It was always about my _daughter_. Get it?” Sonny presses his face against my neck, and I feel the dampness of his tears. “Where Gabi went, Ari went, that’s how it works with mothers. I didn’t give a goddamn who it was Gabi chose to love, as long as it wasn’t the MURDERING SONOFABITCH WHO WANTED MY KID!” I scream.

“We didn’t know.” Abi whispers, backing away like a coward.

“Because you didn’t ask! He needed you and you let him down! He was already twisted and you let it go unchecked! And why?”  I laugh humorlessly. “Because _you_ …” I say with venom towards Abi “…you were too busy screwing my mother’s fiancé.”

Abi gasps, clutching her coat closed at her neck before her expression crumbles. She turns away from me, her shoulders shaking.

“And you,” I look at Julie. “You just had to coddle him, didn’t you?”

She lifts her chin. “I love him, I will always love him.”

“Then you will always be a fool.” I say grimly.

I turn to Hope, and it’s only then that I realize how quiet the waiting room has become, and I know that it’s because I’m saying the words that many have waited to hear.

“You’re a cop, Hope.” I say helplessly, shrugging against Sonny. “How the hell could you let this happen?”

She opens her mouth to say something, but then shuts it again when Rafe cuts her off.

“Don’t you answer. Don’t you say a thing. I tried to tell you but you wouldn’t hear it. Will’s right.”

She swallows hard, but says nothing.

I gently removed myself from Sonny’s arms, and turn to Marlena, taking my whimpering daughter. Ari instantly reaches for me, curling against me. When I have her safely against my shoulder I reach with my free hand for Sonny’s.

“Gabi ―” I pause when my voice breaks and I clear my throat, trying again. “Gabi may have been selfish at times, she may even have been weak, but she was the only mother my daughter had.”

I squeeze Sonny’s hand to bolster my own courage. “In a few years, when she’s old enough to understand you, the three of you are going to explain to her why that’s no longer the case, and the part that you played in it.”

Sonny squeezes my hand back. “Let’s take her home.”

I glance at Hope who seems to have aged a decade in an hour. I wait. And finally she nods, and then turns to where the police hold on to a catatonic Nick. “Arrest him.”

“No!” Julie cries, but I don’t hear the ensuing argument because Sonny’s guiding me away. Away from the hospital, away from my dead friend.

I’m aware of nothing but my own feet as I put one in front of the other, I concentrate on holding Ari who feels so small and fragile in my arms, and when we’re home Sonny sits me down on the sofa and takes over. I watch him as moves the crib from Gabi’s room into ours, and then I follow him into the bedroom.

She’s sleeping now, and I can’t help but think that she has no idea. She has no idea that her mother is dead, and I wonder how long it’ll take until she’s able to understand that the scent that is her mother, the softness of her breast, the comfort Gabi gave her…I wonder how long it will take her to understand that it’s gone forever.

We’re all grieving now, but the greatest loss is yet to be felt, and it will be felt by a _child_. It kills me that it is my daughter who will suffer the most from this.

I don’t realize that I’m crying until Sonny turns me in his arms and holds me close. “I’ve got you.” he whispers. “We will see her through this, I promise.”

“Sonny,” I choke out. “My…my daughter doesn’t have a mother anymore.”

“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“My friend…” I whisper. “You were right. You were right about her.”

His hand strokes the back of my head, cradling me close. “I didn’t want to be.”

“Why did she have to be so stupid, so selfish… _why_ , Sonny?”

“Fear, Will. She was afraid.”

“But she had us!”

“It wasn’t enough. She was afraid of being alone, of being unremarkable, of the crimes she committed…”

“She’s not going to see Ari grow up. She’s going to miss it all because she wouldn’t be brave! Because she couldn’t just let Ari be enough for her! How? I-I don’t understand how…”

“Shhh.” He hushes me, his hands running over my back, holding me together. “We won’t let Ari forget her. We’ll keep her pictures. We’ll talk about her every day. We’ll tell her only the good things.”

“None of the bad stuff?” I whisper.

“No.”

“Because she wasn’t, she…” I pull back slightly to look at him, and his expression is so heartbroken. Heartbroken for me, for our daughter. “Remember how she used to be? T-there was a reason we were best friends, until…”

“I know.” He cuts me off, unwilling to let me stray into the painful line of thought where Gabi had betrayed me, yet again. 

His thumb rubs against my damp cheek. “That’s the stuff we’ll tell her. The _good_ stuff.”

I feel something inside of me shatter and I throw myself into his arms. I literally cry against his shoulder and he just continues to hold me, keeping me upright.

Later when we’re in bed, when Sonny has drifted off to sleep while still holding me securely in his arms, I think about Gabi.

I don’t think about the girl who put her own daughter in harm’s way. I don’t think about the girl who let me down in every conceivable way possible. Instead I think about Gabi from three years ago. I think about her smile, her laughter, her potential and her eagerness for life. I think about the integrity she had, the humor, and the kindness to her. I decide to remember Gabi that way. I decide to grieve for the only girl I ever loved instead of the woman she became.

And then my thoughts turn to Nick.

I know I wash harsh and that my words were terrible, but they were also true. I don’t care if those women are crying right now; I don’t care if they’re overwhelmed with their grief and guilt. I hope it stays with them for the rest of their lives. Eventually, I know I’ll apologize, but not for a long, long time.

And Nick. I don’t have to worry about him; I don’t even have to think about him. And I won’t. I won’t spend a single second worrying about what comes next with him because there is no getting away from what he’s done. He’s built his own personal hell by killing the thing he loves most. I don’t have to think about him, and the very thought is a relief to me.

Instead I think about Sonny and Ari. My family. I turn my thoughts to the future. To birthdays and holidays and kindergarten and high school. As much as I hate myself for looking to the future so soon, it’s the only option. Gabi no longer has a future, but the three of us, my husband, my daughter…we do.


End file.
